Sky High Water Bills !

Remember those balmy days of yesteryear when most homes had a magnificently green lawn to compliment their suburban setting ?  Drive through on a summer day and it was usual to see countless sprinklers at work nourishing that grass with unlimited water.

A report on Australian water is predicting that this commodity is about to join  electricity and gas with ever rising bills.  The days of cheap water are over and we can blame a multitude of reasons for the coming price hikes.

High on the list is the popularity of our state capital cities.  It is expected that Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane will swell by almost six million people by 2031.   The existing water system and its source can not cope with those numbers and will require almost complete duplication.   In many suburbs, this reticulation is over a hundred years old.

Some cities splurged on expensive desalination plants when there was a fear of a water shortage and generally these are unused as that crisis passed.   The eleven billion dollars involved in buying these plants has blocked more progressive water plans and prevented the economics that could have delivered cheaper water.

Unhelpfully, we abolished the National Water Commission in 2015 and it was this body that was responsible for planning the future water needs of the nation.  We now have no national oversight of water management or reform issues.  Individual states make their own arrangements and very often these have a chain effect on supplies for other users.

The unknown factor is climate change.   We have a hotter planet and it seems likely that there will be changes in rainfall patterns.  Some of the water we drink comes from snow melt and it is quite clear that the winter snow depth is retreating. Our water access is based on past rainfall patterns and if that changes we may need to go further for supplies - and perhaps the quantity available has to be shared with other users.

This report contains a prediction of what we will pay for water in the future.  The typical water and sewerage bill has risen by about eight percent each year after inflation to about $ 1226 in 2017.  In todays dollars, they will reach $ 1827 in 2027 and more than double to around $2550 by 2040 - and those are optimistic estimates.

The day is fast coming when we will need to treat water like most other commodities that we buy - with care because it is a costly item.  When we have a luxuriously deep bath or take a very long shower we will need to remember that the meter is ticking away with the quantity being used, and that is a significant lifestyle change.

Few people today put a great value on the water that reaches their home.   They simply regard it as that stuff that falls from the sky.  It may in future choose to do so less often, or in different places.  The one certainty is that water is about to start costing us in similar measure to gas and electricity.   The size of the bill depends on how much we use !